They had hidden their rifles and cleared for
action.
The two chiefs smiled in superior virtue. Of course there were no
rifles. But matters took, for them, an unexpected turn. They had no
rifles--said Major Deane--very well, they should come themselves. He
turned to an officer of the Lancers; a section rode forward and
surrounded both men. Resistance was useless. Flight was impossible. They
were prisoners. Yet they behaved with Oriental composure and calmly
accepted the inevitable. They ordered their ponies and, mounting, rode
behind us under escort.
We pursued our way up the valley. As we approached each fort, a khan and
his retainers advanced and greeted us. Against these there was no
definite charge, and the relations throughout were amicable. At the head
of the valley is Barwa, the home of the most powerful of these
princelets. This fort had belonged to Umra Khan, and attested, by
superiority of construction, the intellectual development of that
remarkable man. After the Chitral expedition it had been given by the
Government to its present owner, who, bitterly hated by the other
chieftains of the valley, his near relatives mostly, had no choice but
loyalty to the British.
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